


Immunized

by invisible_lift (custodian)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Community: writerinadrawer, WriterInADrawer 4.09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/custodian/pseuds/invisible_lift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story is part of a short-duration writing contest.  Please do not comment on this story, positively or negatively, until this notice is removed.  If you are interested in this contest please visit http://community.livejournal.com/writerinadrawer.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Immunized

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of a short-duration writing contest. Please do not comment on this story, positively or negatively, until this notice is removed. If you are interested in this contest please visit http://community.livejournal.com/writerinadrawer.

**Day One**  
"It's full of vegetables." And not little ones either, Ianto thought as he used his spoon to nudge a piece of carrot as big and round as a pound coin. It bobbed in the bold, turmeric yellow broth, and refused to sink.

Gwen gave him a cross look through the mask of her protective suit. "Of course it's full of vegetables. It's chicken soup."

"Veg doesn't follow from chicken." He glared at the bowl. Carrots and onion had to be outnumbering the chicken at least two to one. "It's a _non sequitur_."

"Well, when you're well enough to come out of quarantine and belabor the point with my husband, you go right ahead. Until then, that's a perfectly serviceable bowl of piping hot chicken soup." She crossed her arms and waited.

Ianto only meant to sigh, but the coughing fit came anyway. He knocked the bowl away by accident and sent it tumbling to the floor. It landed with a clank and a splatter on the bare concrete. "Sorry," he rasped, and tried to sit up so that he could get out of bed and clear away the spill.

Gwen pushed him down with a gentle, gloved hand. "Don't worry about it. Rhys sent a whole pot of soup over."

 

**Day Two**  
"The thing about the Zoralian flu," Jack said through the glass, "Is that it's extremely contagious."

Ianto and Gwen scowled in tandem from their matching beds.

"Like, really, really –"

Ianto cleared his throat to cut him off. Gwen scowled even harder.

"Look, don't worry," Jack said and raised his hands in mock surrender. "A couple of days and you two will be just fine. There should be enough bread, peanut butter, juice boxes, and fruit in that crate to get you through. Think of it like a sleepover where you both get to build lifelong immunity to a fascinating contagious disease from outer space."

"Our parents made us do that with chicken pox when I was growing up," Gwen muttered.

Ianto gave Jack a curious look. "So you've already had the Zoralian flu?"

Grinning, Jack patted his left bicep. "Immunized, actually. You two get some rest. I'll be back down in a few hours to check up on you."

The two of them watched from their beds as Jack strode down the corridor and out of sight.

"Immunized," Ianto repeated in an eerily accurate American accent and rolled his eyes.

Gwen gave Ianto a tired smile. "Smug git. Still, I suppose it's good that at least one of us is well enough to go out and catch weevils."

"Yeah, I suppose." He leaned over and reached into the crate. "Banana?"

 

**Day Three**  
Jack gnawed listlessly on a piece of leftover teriyaki beef he'd found in the Hub refrigerator and reflected on the fact that the last time he'd looked this much like death he'd probably actually been dead. He groaned from his spot in the heap of blankets and cushions he'd arranged around the Hub sofa to approximate a massive three-person nest.

"So," Ianto said and settled into the blankets next to him. "Immunized."

"Much as it pains me to admit this, I'm starting to think this isn't the Zoralian flu."

Gwen sat at her work station, wrapped in a blanket. "I should call Rhys. With his job, half the country could be infected by now."

"I never thought I'd be the index case for Earth-crippling mystery flu." With his fingers, Ianto picked up a sticky clump of Jack's rice and popped it into his mouth. "To think, my teachers swore I'd never amount to anything."

"You're not an index case," Jack said. "As long as we stay down here in the Hub for a few days until we recover, everything will be just fine."

"I'm still calling Rhys," Gwen said. She picked up her mobile and took it with her to the catwalk steps where she sat down and dialed.

Ianto nestled in a little closer. Jack tried not to betray his concern at Gwen's phone call by not tensing up.

"You can't tell me you aren't the slightest bit worried."

"Why would I be worried?"

"The words 'probably not Zoralian flu' spring to mind." Ianto picked up another bit of rice with his fingers. "Though if everyone else in Britain has it now, I can at least go home and have a proper shower."

Jack snorted. "If everyone else in Britain has it now, you won't have time for a proper shower." He looked up in time to see Gwen ring off with Rhys on her way back to join them.

"Rhys is fine."

"See? I told you."

"And," she added as she reached for a mug full of chicken soup. "Half of Harwood's is out with H1N1. We probably all caught it from Ruth late last week since she was feeling poorly when we went out there to deal with that lorry driver and the weevils. And before you ask, Big Mickey's even been tested for it, so yes, we're sure."

Jack frowned. "But why isn't Rhys sick?"

Gwen rolled her eyes. "Why do you think? Because he's had his jabs."

"Immunized," Ianto said quietly and smirked as Jack got up to deactivate the lockdown.

 

**Day Seven**  
Ianto strolled down the boardwalk. He carried a bag of pastries in one hand, and a pound bag of freshly roasted coffee beans in the other. The flu wasn't entirely finished with him, but his fever was gone and he didn't feel so poorly he couldn't work. Plus, after three full days at home doing nothing, being back at work sounded like a welcome distraction.

He tucked the coffee under one arm and dug in his pocket for his key to the tourist office. The space sat more or less exactly as he'd left it. He dropped his keys in the bowl, hung his coat on the hook in the room behind the beaded curtain, and then pressed the button that bolted the boardwalk entry and opened the hidden passage to the Hub proper.

Nothing happened.

Brow furrowed, he pressed it again, this time with definite intent. Still nothing. He reached for the telephone on his reception desk and put one hand on his gun.

Jack answered on the third ring.

"I can't get into the Hub. Is everything alright? Why are we locked down?"

"We're not in lockdown. I just, uh—" Jack's voice rattled into a fit of coughing. "Sorry. I disabled the door."

"You're still sick?"

"A bit. It's nothing alien, as far as I know. Probably."

There was a noise at the door and Ianto looked up just in time to see Gwen step in. He waved at her and then gestured to the phone. A look of recognition dawned on her face when he mouthed the word "JACK."

"Well, that's a relief. Probably." Ianto looked at his bag of pastries, then back down at the button. "Do you want me to go get you some soup? Juice? Paracetamol?"

"I'd actually kill for something solid. Spicy food is supposed to be good for the sick, isn't it? Lots of chilies and garlic. Spice Merchant?"

"More like curry Pot Noodle or a frozen dinner this early, but I'll see what I can do." He fished his keys back out of the bowl and looked at the boardwalk door. "Oh and Jack?"

"Yeah?"

He looked up at Gwen and grinned. "The next time you let Gwen torture me when I'm ill I'll make sure you do get the Zoralian flu."

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of a short-duration writing contest. Please do not comment on this story, positively or negatively, until this notice is removed. If you are interested in this contest please visit http://community.livejournal.com/writerinadrawer.


End file.
